Pre-Majors prepare for state tourney

It will be hard for the Eufaula Pre-Majors to top last week’s 13-inning district championship win against Greenville.

A berth in the state championship series would do the trick.

Eufaula is one of five teams in Thomasville this weekend playing for a championship series berth. The local All Stars begin the round-robin tournament today at 1 p.m. against Grove Hill.

It will be a busy weekend for the team of 15 and 16-year-olds, as they will play four games in three days. Eufaula will also play Auburn, Selma and host Thomasville.

Eufaula coach Roy Johns attempted to keep practice as close to normal as possible this week, though this hasn’t been a normal week because of the rain.

“We (approached) practice just as we’ve done all year long concentrating on some aspects that showed up during the district tournament like doing a better job on run downs, lead offs, and stealing,” he said.

“It’s been pretty wet so far this week so we’ve been taking a lot of batting practice at the Gators Sport Academy where it’s dry and gives us an opportunity to work on several things from the plate.”

Eufaula averaged eight runs per game in the district tournament, but the team’s strength was pitching. Several pitchers combined to allow just 10 runs, or 2 1/2 runs per game. That statistic is even more impressive when considering that the Greenville game last Wednesday took 13 innings - six innings longer than a regulation baseball game.

For more on this story read the weekend edition of The Tribune, available Friday morning.